Answer this bizarre question please

[izquierdista]

I'm asking this question here as I truly don't know where to go for an answer, but I know that some DUer will be able to help me.

Q: Why are there no botanical gardens in any Arabic-speaking countries? Is there something in Islam that discourages the scientific study of the plant kingdom? The few botanical gardens in Islamic countries (Pakistan, Indonesia) seem to have been started by European colonists during the colonial era and are now affiliated with a university.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Well, there were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,

one of the so-called seven wonders of the ancient world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_Gardens_of_Babylon

[humblebum]

2. Long before Islam. How can you be certain there aren't?

[izquierdista]

3. From this page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_botanical_gardens

What countries are missing on this list?

[uppityperson]

6. Why are Arabic countries left off that list as yes, there are botanical gardens

seem my post below.

[humblebum]

9. My guess is probably the climate and the scarcity of water. But I

don't know. I would think it to be very expensive to maintain a botanical garden in a country that has an average temperature some months over 100 degrees F. and not much good soil for cultivation. Concerning Iran, they aren't Arabs nor arab speaking. They are historically Persian and they are located along side the Fertile Crescent.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. There are five in Iran.

[izquierdista]

8. They speak Farsi in Iran, not Arabic.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. That's true. But your question had to do with whether there was something

about Islam that caused a lack of botanical gardens. Iran is an Islamic country. Maybe one reason many Arabic-speaking countries don't have botanical gardens is there's no damn water.

[uppityperson]

5. There are. Here is from a very quick wiki search...Morocco, UAE, Sudan, Jordan

The Majorelle Garden (Arabic: حديقة ماجوريل‎ ) is a twelve-acre botanical garden and artist's landscape garden in Marrakech, Morocco. It was designed by the expatriate French artist Jacques Majorelle in the 1920s and 1930s, during the colonial period when Morocco was a protectorate of France. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorelle_Garden

Qur'anic Botanic Garden in Sharjah (UAE)

Khartoum, Sudan, is home to a small botanical garden, in the Mogran district of the cityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum

Royal Botanic Gardens in Jordan http://www.bgci.org/eurasia/news/0342/

Cairo Botanical Gardens

[izquierdista]

10. Thank you

[MADem]

7. Well, OMAN is building one that is touted to be a dazzler.

http://www.oman-botanic-garden.org/index.php/en/

Baghdad has had one too, since 1944, not sure what kind of shape it is in now, called the Za'faraniyah Botanical Garden: http://www.bgci.org/garden.php?id=461

It's a pretty barren area, by and large.

I think Lebanon used to have one, in Beiruth, but it got destroyed in the war a long time back. Don't know if they ever rebuilt it.

[Silent3]

11. I'm pretty sure they exist, since I've been in one before

Back in 2006, in Aswan, Egypt, on an island in the middle of the Nile.

Lots of cats on the island.

[Deep13]

12. Pakistan, Indonesia not Arabic-speaking.

I need evidence to accept that there are no botanical gardens in Arabic-speaking countries. (On edit, I see others have disproved your point.)

By the way, Pakistan is not an Arabic-speaking country. Indonesia has over 300 distinct cultures with many different languages and the official language is Indonesian, not Arabic. Also, Indonesia is not an Islamic country. It is a secular society with a majority Muslim population.

IF there is any truth to your suggestion, then I expect it is confined to the arid Middle East were water to support non-productive planets is considered a luxury.

masaalam

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Who told you that there were no botanical gardens in Arabic-speaking countries?

:shrug: